WFPI virtual communications centre: a hive of e-mail activity.

Abstract

Pediatr Radiol (2014) 44:700–703 DOI 10.1007/s00247-014-2977-1 MINISYMPOSIUM WFPI virtual communications centre: a hive of e-mail activity Savvas Andronikou & Amanda Dehaye & Maria Ines Boechat Received: 5 February 2014 / Accepted: 13 March 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 The World Federation of Pediatric Imaging (WFPI) functions in a virtual space spanning six continents to coordinate activ- ities for its worldwide membership. A distance of 9,400 km and a time difference of 9 h separate the current president, who resides in Los Angeles (USA), and the general manager, who lives in southwest France. The organization communicates with its members via its Web site and newsletters distributed by mail which, like its founding societies, affords it a virtual presence and provides an extension to enable the society to exert greater influence [1]. Communication among council (board) members is sponta- neous and interactive. Yet some council members rarely find themselves in the same room together, and the council as a whole is never in the same place at the same time. Because there is no budget allocated for flying council members to meeting loca- tions, verbally interactive communications are largely limited to Skype and electronic meetings using GoToMeeting© software (www.gotomeeting.com; Citrix Online, Santa Clara, CA). The biannual council meetings are partially attended online, with no face-to-face interaction because webcams overload the software. This type of communication among council members, who speak nine different languages, takes place with significant time delays, and large Web-based meetings require expert time- S. Andronikou (*) Department of Radiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, York Rd, Parktown, Johannesburg 2193, South Africa e-mail: docsav@mweb.co.za A. Dehaye World Federation of Pediatric Imaging, Reston, VA, USA M. I. Boechat Council of Directors, World Federation of Pediatric Imaging, Department of Radiological Sciences, Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA engineering for all to attend. The council’s membership secretary in Australia regularly attends meetings at 1 a.m. local time the following day. So, while the WFPI prides itself on the reach of its education and outreach, as well as the diversity of its members, it is a surprise that more things don’t get lost in translation. Needless to say, the majority of business communications are conducted via e-mail. E-mail is considered “the most important mechanism introduced for developing interpersonal relationships since the telephone” and it is the most widely used form of computer mediated communication developed to date [2]. The central communication hub of the WFPI is the general manager’s office. The general manager acts as the main communication portal, channelling the information back into council/committee support (background briefings, ghost- ing). The manager also maintains the tempo when projects start flagging and generates visibility/accountability tools, drawing on the archives (Web site, newsletters, donor reports). The archives kept by the WFPI office provide an excellent opportunity to generate important data by quantifying commu- nications using a categorisation system to shed light on the areas of most activity. Previous medical-related research using infor- mation elicited through analysis of e-mail collected these data based on message volume, frequency and length of messages, response time and content [2]. Because of current staffing limitations and the sensitive nature of some e-mails, we deter- mined the volume of e-mail since the WFPI’s start-up and devised content categories according to their nature. The goal was to quantify and categorise e-mail communications relevant to WFPI activity from start-up to date by examining the WFPI e-mail archives preserved by the WFPI general manager. Methods The WFPI general manager’s e-mail address, which receives mail directly or via being copied on the vast majority of WFPI